FOLLOW US

Oppo F5 review: It’s all about the selfies

Is this a smartphone which is adept at clicking good selfies but inept at other things? Or is it a smartphone that goes beyond the USP? Read our review to find out more.

| Gadgets Now | Updated: Jan 24, 2018, 11:54AM IST

Critic Rating3.5/5

User Rating3.5/5

Top Features

-Excellent front camera-Impressive display-Smooth performance

NEW DELHI: Let’s face it: there’s no escaping the selfie phenomena. No matter how much you may cringe looking at adults or teenagers – in public places especially – giving it their best shot to capture the perfect selfie, better learn to live with it. The selfie is here to stay and perhaps that’s why brands are catering to this “rage”.

A brand which has consistently made selfie centric smartphones and carved its name in the smartphone market is
Oppo. When the Oppo F5 – the latest selfie offering – landed at our review desk, there was a sense of skepticism. Is this a smartphone which is adept at clicking good selfies but inept at other things? Or is it a smartphone that goes beyond the USP? Read our review to find out more:

Oppo F5 Design and Display

The Oppo F5 is a big phone but surprisingly doesn’t feel that big once you start using it. It’s a smartphone that grows on you. The review unit we got was warm gold which comes with a matte metallic texture. To give it a premium look, Oppo has gone for a chrome ring which runs around the phone’s sides. There’s an iPhone 7 kind of look and feel to the phone. Even if you’re fussy about the looks of the smartphone, Oppo F5 should satisfy your need of a good-looking device. It’s not a phone which will make you go wow but it’s nothing to scoff at either.

The power button and dual-SIM tray is located on the right whereas the volume buttons are placed on the left side. The top of the smartphone has a mic and the bottom is where you get a microUSB port, 3.5mm audio socket and the speaker grille. The fingerprint sensor is at the back and works like a charm.

For a big device, the Oppo F5 is lightweight (152 grams) and the phone is easy to grip. Forget about using it with a single hand though yet it is easy to handle. At 7.5mm, the Oppo F5 is considerably thin.

There’s face recognition in the Oppo F5 which is a way of saying that you don’t have to spend Rs 89,000 to get that “exciting” feature. There wasn’t any issue in setting up FaceID – oops that’s perhaps an Apple trademark – or facial recognition as it took us two attempts to set it up. Unlocking the smartphone with it was also a breeze as perhaps just once in really low-lit conditions, it failed to unlock.

For a phone that costs Rs 19,999, you expect it to have a display that gives you no reason to complain. The Oppo F5 very much delivers what it promises with its display. The 6-inch full HD+ display panel offers 18:9 aspect ratio which gives it a major fillip. The viewing angles are reasonable as are the brightness levels. Using the Oppo F5 in sunlight won’t make you squint or put an extra effort to read. The bigger screen ensures that reading e- books and watching videos is pure delightful. Even games are more fun to play on the Oppo F5 courtesy its impressive display.

Oppo F5 Performance and Camera

It’s rather pointless to mention about lags and stutters in most phones priced above Rs 15,000. We surely don’t expect smartphones to deliver terrible performance in what are their flagship phones, do we? Most of these smartphones are powered by processors which are capable of delivering smooth and reliable performance. The processor on Oppo F5 is a MediaTek MT6763T and features eight ARM Cortex A53 cores. There’s also an integrated Mali-G71 MP2 GPU and improved image processor. The Oppo F5 comes with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage.

All these above-mentioned specs combine together to deliver solid and reliable performance on the Oppo F5. At no point will you feel that the smartphone doesn’t respond quick enough. Be it Google Maps or social media platforms, apps load rather quickly on the phone. For doing most of the basic and performance testing functions, it gets thumbs up from us on the whole. For those who want to really know how the smartphone performs, we ran some performance tests. On Antutu, it recorded an impressive score of 63027. Despite multiple attempts of running Geekbench tests, we were unable to do so.

The one aspect which is always a critical deciding factor in buying a smartphone is the battery life and it’s an area when Oppo F5 genuinely excels. The 3200mAH battery charges approximately in two hours and easily lasts for an entire day. Heavy social media user? Not a problem. Love playing games on smartphone?

Bring it on, says the Oppo F5. The smartphone charges rapidly and when combined with long lasting battery makes it one of our favourite features. It did come as a surprise as Oppo decided to give fast charging a miss with the F5 and yet it does the job exceptionally well. If you’re looking for a USB-C type charger in the Oppo F5, you will be disappointed to know that it doesn’t have one. It’s a feature that we would have liked in the Oppo F5.

Perhaps it’s a pet peeve but frankly it still rankles that even latest Android phones from various brands haven’t got the Android 8.0 Oreo. Opp F5 isn’t the Chosen One yet as it runs Android 7.1.1 Nougat out of the box aided with the Color OS 3.2. The user interface takes a lot of “inspiration” from Apple’s iOS.

For instance, to delete apps you don’t have to drag and take them to the trash icon. Just like iOS, all you need to do is long press an app and you can delete it. That’s not where the iOS inspirations end. Swipe up the home screen and you get shortcuts like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, flashlight among others. There isn’t any app drawer on the Oppo F5 and it fortunately doesn’t have any bloatware. The only pre-loaded apps are Amazon and Amazon Prime.

Now to the much-touted front – sorry, the selfie – camera which boasts of AI capabilities. The Oppo F5 comes with a 20MP sensor at the front and has a depth effect which is surprisingly missing on the rear camera. Since it’s mostly about selfies these days, Oppo clearly knows its target customers and doesn’t disappoint them. Frankly, the selfie camera takes strikingly good images. The AI mode aids images that are clicked in low-light and the “beauty” features also gets enhanced. Step outside – not in a mall mercifully -- to click a selfie and the images are sharp and vibrant. An evening out with your friends at a rooftop
café and Oppo F5 clicks memorable selfies.

What works in the favour of the front camera is that it doesn’t make the images look wide eyed – an issue most other phones’ cameras suffer from. The AI integration is certainly an addition that makes the Oppo F5 camera a winner.

The rear camera is no dud either and clicks satisfactory images. Perhaps it’s the display of the Oppo F5 but images really look crisp. The detailing is done very well and colours don’t get saturated. There are usual modes – HDR, Panorama, Beauty – and even the Camera app borrows heavily from iOS. If the camera, more specifically the front camera, is a critical factor in buying a smartphone then go ahead with the Oppo F5. It’s the standout feature of the smartphone and delivers what it promises.

A rare occasion of a smartphone talking the talk and walking the walk.

Verdict

For Rs 19,990, the Oppo F5 is as good as smartphone you can get. Most importantly, it lives up to the promise of being an excellent selfie centric smartphone. Add to that its impressive display, good battery life and solid all-round performance makes it a strong competitor in an already crowded segment.

There are options like the recently launched Moto X4 and Honor 9i but the balance is tipped in Oppo F5’s favour because of its AI-integrated front camera.